


like real people do

by theglitterati



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Developing Relationship, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, at least ~I~ think it's happy, this sounds miserable but i swear it has a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27314980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theglitterati/pseuds/theglitterati
Summary: Hajime makes a new friend at school.He's not what he seems.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74
Collections: Haikyuu Horror Week





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags! There are discussions of suicide in this. Title from the Hozier song.
> 
> This was written for Haikyuu Halloween Week Day 10! The prompt was "the fight of your life." I've interpreted it pretty vaguely haha.

He’s hiding behind the gym when the boy appears. Quite literally, like he blew in on the wind.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Hajime’s opening his mouth to say _yes, I do mind_ when he looks up and stops. He’s never seen this guy before, big eyes and flippy brown hair like an idol. He’s tall, even taller from where Hajime sits on the ground, but it’s his smile, open and inviting, that gets Hajime’s attention.

“Go ahead,” he finds himself answering. The boy flops down beside him with the grace of a dandy fainting onto a chaise longue. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“You can call me Tooru.”

Hajime waits for him to offer his family name, but he doesn’t. “Iwaizumi Hajime.”

Tooru grins, canines glinting. “Nice to meet you, Iwa-chan.” Hajime stares. He’d put Tooru in a headlock if he didn’t look like it would break him. “What year are you in?”

“Third. You?”

“Same. I’m new here, if you hadn’t already guessed.”

Hajime shrugs. Seijoh’s a big school, but Tooru seems… memorable. “What class?”

“Six.”

“So you’re a nerd.” Class six is for the advanced students. “Must be hard, though, starting at a new school in your last year.” 

“I guess. We moved here from Tokyo at the beginning of August. I don’t know anyone here— well, except you, Iwa-chan.” Hajime’s about to tell him not to call him _Iwa-chan_ when the bell rings. “Oops! Gotta go. See you tomorrow!”

He’s gone before Hajime can blink.

_Tomorrow?_

*

“Do you always eat lunch behind the gym alone, Iwa-chan? How macabre.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Tooru actually beat him there, his long legs poking out in front of him as he leans against the building.

“Yes, but I’m waiting for you.”

Hajime does not normally eat here. He eats in the cafeteria with his friends and his team like a normal person, as he had intended to do today. But his legs had other ideas, bringing him back to Tooru.

He sits down. “You’re not going to make friends if you hide back here.”

“I’ve already made one! But it’s nice that Iwa-chan is concerned about my social life.”

Hajime rolls his eyes. He assumes Tooru means him. Two lunches isn’t much, but Hajime has always been reserved. Tooru clearly isn’t.

Hajime’s the only one eating. “Do you want some of this?” He offers his bento.

“Not hungry. Thanks, though.”

Hajime raises an eyebrow and digs into his noodles. Tooru’s thin, but not waifish. He definitely eats. “Were you in a club at your old school?”

He fiddles with his hands. Hajime’s never seen him hesitate before. “I played soccer.”

“Cool. Are you going to join the team here?”

“Nah. I’m a third year. By the time I got used to it, I’d have to retire.”

“True.” Seijoh’s soccer team isn’t great; there’s no way they’ll go to Nationals. “What position did you play?”

“Um, midfielder,” Tooru says vaguely. “What about you?” He waves a hand at Hajime’s arms. “You look athletic. Wrestling?”

“Volleyball. I’m the captain.”

“Impressive.”

“You ever played?”

“No,” Tooru says. “Never.”

“You’d probably be decent. You’re tall, which makes up for a lot…” Hajime trails off, his eyes sweeping down Tooru’s legs. When he looks up, Tooru’s smirking. He caught him staring.

“Is your team good?”

“Yeah, we are.” Pride flares in Hajime’s chest. “We usually make the top four at Interhigh. There’s another school that always wins it, though.”

“Shiratorizawa,” Tooru says.

Hajime blinks. “You’ve heard of them already?”

“I overheard someone mention them the other day,” Tooru explains. “A big powerhouse school, right?”

“Yeah.” Hajime scrubs a hand through his hair. “That’s actually why I was back here yesterday. We had a practice match against them a few days ago, and they destroyed us. I keep playing it over in my head, thinking about what we could have done differently. I just want us to have a chance, you know?”

Tooru nods. “I get it. It seems like you really love volleyball, Iwa-chan.”

“I do. What about you? Were you really into soccer?”

He expects the answer to be no, but Tooru says, “I loved it more than anything.”

*

“Do you have a girlfriend, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime chokes on his sandwich. They had been talking about his little brother’s baseball team until two seconds ago. “Why are you asking?”

Tooru props himself up on his elbows. He’s lying on the ground, butt against the wall, legs stretched up in the air. “Friends tell each other things.”

“You think I’d be eating with you if I had a girlfriend?” Their lunches have become A Thing. The team’s been asking where Hajime’s been. He tells them he’s been staying in his classroom to do homework. He doesn’t know why he’s lying.

“Maybe she goes to a different school. Or maybe you’re a really crappy boyfriend. Don’t evade the question, Iwa-chan.”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend,” Hajime says. “I’m not really into girls.” The words are out of his mouth before he can think them through.

“Interesting.”

“Is it?” He wonders if this is a horrible idea, telling Tooru. Some of the team knows, but he’s not exactly walking in parades.

“It’s just unexpected. You have such a caveman-like physique, I thought your tastes would be similar: big boobs and quick to run from cheetahs."

“There’s no cheetahs in Japan, shithead.”

Tooru laughs, a nasal sound, and flops back down. “Me, I like everyone. Girls, guys, not otherwise specified. As long as they’re nice to look at.”

“Guess I’m out, then,” Hajime grunts. 

Tooru lowers his chin, looks down his nose at him. “Oh, Iwa-chan. You are _very_ nice to look at.”

*

Call it realism, or low self-esteem, but there’s something about Tooru — gorgeous, funny, transfer student Tooru, who just happens to want to spend every lunchtime flirting with Hajime — that feels too perfect. Hajime doesn’t even know how he found him behind the gym the first time; Tooru doesn’t seem like the type of hide on his first day at a new school. He could ask him, but day after day, he doesn’t.

There are other things, too.

Hajime attends a meeting for the school club captains to plan for the upcoming festival. Seijoh normally does a relay race with runners from every team, maybe an exhibition game where they try different sports. 

The girls’ basketball captain is in class 3-6. When Hajime asks her if she knows Tooru, she frowns. There is a new guy in her class, but his name’s not Tooru.

“Unless I’m mistaken!” she backpedals. “I don’t always pay the best attention in class.” It’s understandable; they’re only a few weeks into the semester. But Tooru isn’t someone whose name you would forget.

Tooru never eats, tells Hajime that he’s not hungry or that he had a snack between classes. Besides the one conversation they had about soccer, he rarely mentions his past. And there’s something else, something Hajime can’t quite grasp. It’s the way the wind ruffles his hair, or how he sits, still, his breath barely lifting his chest. Hajime thinks sometimes that if he reached out and touched him, he might disappear.

*

They read manga over lunch. Actually, Hajime reads, and Tooru peers over his shoulders at the pictures, squinting.

“You seriously need glasses,” Hajime says, for the third time today. “How do you see the board in class?”

“My seat’s in the front row.” Tooru waves him off. “It’s fine. Keep going.”

Hajime sighs, but does what he tells him. It’s fun, reading to him. Tooru’s the only teenage boy he knows who’s never heard of _Gintama_ , and his reactions are over-the-top.

Hajime glances up as he turns the page and sees someone heading towards them.

“Someone you know?” Tooru asks.

“Kindaichi. He’s a first year on the team.”

“Does his head always look that pointy?”

Hajime snorts. “Yes. But he’s a good kid.”

“You’re such a kind senpai. I’d love to meet him, but I actually have to run!” Tooru’s already on his feet. “I just remembered we have a quiz today in English and I forgot to study! Later, Iwa-chan!”

“Bye?” Hajime says to his retreating back. He considers calling out to him, but Kindaichi’s already at his feet.

“Sorry to bug you, Iwaizumi-san, but Coach was looking for you.”

Hajime stands, resigned to spending the rest of lunch dealing with captain business instead of reading with his cute friend. “What’s up?”

“He said there was an issue with the practice game tonight. Something about the gym floors being waxed. I think they have to reschedule.”

“Alright, I’ll go talk to him. You can come, if you want.” 

“Sure.” Kindaichi falls in step beside them as they head to the gym offices. “Iwaizumi-san, is your class doing a play for the school festival?”

“Huh?” Hajime says. “No, why?”

“I just wondered… when I was walking over, it looked like you were talking to yourself. I thought maybe you were memorizing lines.” He glances over, takes Hajime’s expression for anger instead of the terror it is. “Sorry if that was rude! I didn’t mean anything—”

Hajime doesn’t hear the rest of his stuttered apology. He doesn’t hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears.

*

He gets through his meeting with the coach, making excuses that he doesn’t feel well when he asks him why he’s so pale. When it’s over, he doesn’t go back to class. He hasn’t skipped school since his rebellious phase in junior high, but there’s no way he can be there now.

His parents are at work, will be for hours. Hajime climbs the stairs to his room and turns on his computer.

There’s an explanation for this. He just needs to find it.

He stares at the blinking cursor. After some deliberating, he types: _signs of a nervous breakdown._

“Don’t scream,” a voice whispers in his ear, “but you’re way off-base.”

Hajime screams, swiveling his chair and backing up until it hits the desk.

“I said _don’t_ scream.” Tooru rolls his eyes and sits on Hajime’s bed like an invited guest.

A million questions run through his mind. The one that comes out is, “How are you here?”

“I heard what turniphead said at lunch— see, I was around even when you couldn’t see me, that’s a point against your ‘figment of my imagination’ theory. Anyway, I thought you’d be feeling dramatic and freaked out, so I followed you home.”

As if that isn’t reason enough to be freaked out. “So what, are you here to kill me?”

“No, Iwa-chan. I’m here to talk.” He leans forward, clasping his hands. “Your first guess was wrong: you’re not hallucinating me. As if your mind could come up with someone so perfect.”

“You’re a dick,” Hajime spits. It feels good to feel something other than fear, even if it’s irritation.

“Rude,” Tooru says. “Guess again. What am I?”

Hajime does actually have a second theory. “You’re a yokai. A demon.”

“How many demons do you know that wear Seijoh uniforms?”

“Maybe you’re trying to tempt me, by looking familiar.”

“Wrong. If I were a demon, I’d come up with better ways to tempt you.” He’s grinning, enjoying teasing Hajime, but his face turns dark. “If you think about it,” he says, quieter, “you already know why I wear this.”

Hajime didn’t know, a second before, but the words fall from his tongue. “Because it’s what you died in,” he says. “You’re a ghost.”

“Ding ding ding.”

“You’re a ghost,” Hajime repeats. It makes sense. He hates that it makes sense. “How long—”

“Nine years.”

Nine years. So Hajime would never have met him. If he was alive, Tooru would be twenty-seven. Only one person has died at Seijoh recently, a girl a year older than Hajime who had leukemia.

But there’s something in the back of Hajime’s mind, a story he heard in his first year of high school. One of his senpai’s older brothers told him. He’d been on the team, too, when he was in school, and—

“Oh my god,” Hajime says. “You’re _Oikawa_ Tooru. You’re—”

“The volleyball captain who killed himself?”

Hajime frowns. “I was going to say it nicer.”

“No need. I was there. I know what happened.”

Hajime knows, too. Oikawa, one of the most talented players Seijoh had ever had, jumped off a bridge near the school after a lost game. Rumour was that it was Shiratorizawa who beat them. Nine years is not a long time, but it’s three generations of high school students, and the details have been lost. Oikawa is just a myth, fueling a never-ending rivalry.

Hajime realizes Tooru is waiting for him to speak. Sitting on the bed, tugging at his hair, Tooru doesn’t look like a myth. He looks like a depressed eighteen-year-old who hasn’t had a friend in years.

“You lied about playing soccer,” Hajime says.

“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t see right through me. I don’t know a single thing about soccer.”

“What position did you play in volleyball?”

“I was the setter,” he says, “and I was the best.” 

“Cocky for a dead guy.” Hajime remembers what Tooru said earlier, about tempting him. “Flirtatious, too.”

At this, Tooru grins. “If you think I’m flirtatious now, you should have seen me when I was alive. I would have eaten you up.”

His smile fades as soon as he finishes talking. It’s like he can’t sustain happiness when he’s not forcing it. Hajime wonders if it’s a ghost thing, or if Tooru had to fake it when he was alive, too.

“I wish I hadn’t done it,” he says. “I want you to know that. I regretted it the second after I jumped.”

“I think most people do.”

Tooru shifts on the bed and the sheets move under his hand. “Hey, are you, like… corporeal?” Hajime asks. “Could I touch you, or would my hand go right through you?”

“In between,” Tooru says cryptically. “Don’t try it.”

Immediately Hajime reaches out to brush Tooru’s knee. He only gets him with his fingertips, but a cold, sick feeling washes all the way up his arm, lingering even after Tooru jerks away.

“I said don’t.”

“Sorry.” Hajime ignores the irony of apologizing for violating the boundaries of a ghost who’s been stalking him for a month.

“So why me?” he asks. He’s been curious about this for a long time, even before he knew Tooru was dead. “Why did you pick me, of all people, to talk to?”

Tooru hesitates. “Would you believe it’s just ‘cause I thought you were hot?”

Hajime would love to believe that, but… “No.”

He sighs. “You’re right, although I do. Think you’re hot. But I’m here because... you’re going to die, too, Iwa-chan.”

*

It’s five days before Hajime can bring himself to go to their lunch spot again. Tooru’s waiting for him, like he knew he would be.

“Finally decided to believe me?” he asks.

“I guess.” He believed it when Tooru first told him. He just didn’t want it to be true.

It wasn’t a premonition, Tooru had explained, or something he could predict like the weather, but a feeling, an uneasiness he followed right to Hajime’s door. He couldn’t tell him how or where or when he would die. He just knew that he would.

“It will be… untimely,” Tooru had said. Hajime’s eighteen; he thinks all deaths are untimely.

“Do you think we can stop it?” he asks Tooru now.

“We can try.”

*

It turns out that it’s difficult to prevent a death you know nothing about. They brainstorm ways to keep Hajime safe, from breaking his jaywalking habit to lowering his already-negligible alcohol consumption to zero. He gets an early flu shot and sits out of gym class the day they do archery.

He wonders if this is a bad idea, trying to mess with fate. What if the flu shot gives him an allergic reaction, or a car drives up on the sidewalk while he's waiting to cross? What if just being around Tooru is enough to trigger his end?

He questions Tooru about this. “If you think it’s best, I’ll leave you alone,” Tooru says. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Hajime.”

Hajime tells him to stay.

They pass the time talking about volleyball. Now that he doesn’t have to lie, Tooru never stops talking about it, desperate to help Hajime’s team win the Interhigh. He tells Hajime that the timing of his death was mostly a coincidence, his loss the last nail in a coffin of heavy depression, but he does hate Shiratorizawa with a passion. He has a particular grudge against the captain from his time, Ushijima.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi?” Hajime says. “He’s famous now. He plays for—”

“I’m aware. I saw his stupid face on a magazine.” Tooru scrunches his nose in disgust. “God, he was an asshole.”

It’s unhealthy, he thinks, the glow in his eyes when he talks about volleyball, how he looks more alive then than at any other time. But Hajime’s desperate, and he’ll take what help he can get.

*

A week before the Interhigh, there’s a late season storm. Miyagi is drenched in rain when it should be looking forward to its first snow. Hajime’s home with Tooru, watching a stupid show Tooru missed the last season of after he died. He’s engrossed, biting his lip.

“Is this the afterlife?” Hajime muses. “Watching shitty dramas?”

“It’s not shitty.”

“Tooru.”

“I don’t know,” he groans. “I haven’t really thought about it that much. I know that sounds weird, but… time moves differently here. Nine years has felt like forever, and it’s also felt like nothing. If there’s more than this, I haven’t found it yet.”

“Are there more of you? Ghosts, I mean. Someone you could ask?” 

“I’ve seen others. None of them stuck around.”

“I’m sorry.” Hajime asks something else he’s been wondering. “Do you ever visit your family?”

Tooru nods. “Sometimes. My parents are only in their fifties. My sister’s thirty now, and she has a kid. I’ve never shown myself to them. I don’t want to scare them…” He gets distracted by the show, restarts. “It probably sounds cruel, but they don’t feel very real to me anymore. Nothing does, except you.”

The phone rings before Hajime can say anything. He swallows thickly and answers.

“Hajime?” It’s his mother.

“Hey.”

“Can you come get us? We’re at the baseball field. Kousuke’s game got rained out, but we’re locked out of the car. Dad’s keys are on the dresser upstairs.”

Hajime doesn’t have a license yet, but he’s known how to drive since he was sixteen. “Sure.”

“Thanks. We’re at the entrance to his school, under the awning.”

“Be there soon.” He hangs up.

Tooru’s watching him, clearly having heard the entire conversation. “It’s raining pretty hard,” he says.

“I know.”

“Doesn’t that concern you?”

“I’ve driven in the rain before.”

“I’m worried, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime’s worried, too, but what’s the alternative? Leave his parents and brother out in the rain and tell them a ghost told him not to pick them up? Forget Interhigh, he’d be grounded for weeks.

“I’ll be careful,” he tells Tooru, grabbing his jacket. “It’ll be fine.”

*

It’s not fine. The rain picks up when Hajime’s five minutes from home, pelting the windows so hard that even on the fastest speed, his wipers do nothing. He skids on sleet-covered roads twice before pulling over, accepting that this is too dangerous for someone with a metaphorical noose around his neck. He adjusts the rearview mirror and finds Tooru in the backseat.

“Sorry. I couldn’t let you go alone.”

“It’s okay,” Hajime says. “You were right. I can’t drive in this. We can wait the storm out here and I’ll get my parents when it stops.” He takes out his phone to call them, but there’s no signal. Figures.

“They’ll understand,” Tooru says, relieved.

“Yeah, they will.”

There’s a wall of water outside the windows. 

Neither of them sees the truck.

*

Hajime wakes standing up, though it feels less like waking and more like blinking into existence. Or maybe, he thinks, surveying the scene in front of him, blinking out of it.

What’s left of his car is surrounded by flashing lights, fire trucks and police and an ambulance that’s doing nothing for anyone because the truck driver is unharmed and Hajime is already dead. It’s not the shocking realization he thought it would be. It’s just reality.

Maybe it’s easier to accept because he’s not alone. Tooru’s beside him, looking out over the wreckage. “I’m really sorry, Hajime,” he says. “I tried to get you out, but…”

Hajime understands. The dead can’t help the living. “You did your best.”

He knows now what Tooru means about time moving differently. He feels like he’s been here forever, has no idea how much time has actually passed. The rain has let up and emergencies crews have arrived, so probably a couple of hours. He wonders if his family knows yet.

They already feel distant, hard to hold in his mind for too long. Tooru, at his side, is much more tangible.

“Guess neither of us is beating Shiratorizawa, huh?” he jokes. Tooru gives him a sad smile. “Hey, can I try something?”

He waits for an answer, a _yes_ this time, before taking Tooru’s hand. It’s warm, and solid, with calluses from volleyball that match Hajime’s own. He swears he can feel a pulse.

Tooru marvels at the contact, his mouth falling open. He’s crying, though no tears fall. Nine years he’s been alone; nine years with no one to touch.

Hajime links their fingers together and tugs on his hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at kyrstin.tumblr.com!


End file.
